The Basis for Tort Reform

In my opinion any “reform” of the health care system that does not addess tort reform is not serious. The linked article from Dr. Peter Weiss is a bit dramatic, but it does make the case.

Physicians alone pay some 19 billion dollars a year in malpractice premiums. The argument …that the U.S. malpractice system is only a small contributor to the high cost of health care. This is completely false. This view blatantly fails to take into account the cost of defensive medicine and defensive documentation. As an example, more than a third of 1,600 physicians (36%) admitted that they would order an MRI that was not warranted if a patient with back pain requested one. Another example is CAT scans, of which more than 62 million are preformed annually. About a third are estimated to be medically unnecessary, done primarily for medico-legal reasons.

Larry, it’s not happening. Of course, tort reform is a necessity, not only to save billions of dollars, but also to restore fairness to an abusive and arbitrary system. I’m a physician who has been in the arena. See http://www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality.